Advent 2018, part three

Here's part one and here's part two. And now, to the third and final part of Advent 2018 in the Lange chaos...

December 17th: I didn't go swimming because I couldn't bear the thought of getting home to a cold shower, but the plumber came at 8:00 to replace the heating element in the hot water tank. Which meant emptying 250 liters of water onto our non-waterproof roof...

See the black part where all the water is puddling? There's a drain about where the left-hand yogurt pot is floating, and the water did go down that drain just fine (and out into the courtyard behind our kitchen, where it is NOT draining very well...), but the reason that area is black is because extra water-proofing stuff has been painted on there over the original white, obviously because it pools there and has leaked before. And it wasn't working. (And the yogurt pot had been to catch a leak from the pump, which the plumber also fixed.) I have since re-waterproofed the entire roof (the roof over the stairs and our landing, that is, which the water tanks are on top of, so not a huge area), but it hasn't rained much since I finished that, so I don't know yet how well it will work. (My paint is white, not black, so that will hopefully help keep it a little cooler in the summer, especially when I've done the whole rest of the roof, over Katie's room, Helen and Elisabeth's room, and the bathroom, which is currently all black. It's only leaking in Katie's room, but I just want to do all of it BEFORE it springs new leaks. I can't do it until everything with our room is finished, though, because wood and drainpipes and tools and such are occupying a large part of the roof.)

The rest of the day was a more-or-less usual Monday, with Oasis in the morning and 3-5-year-old drama class in the afternoon, which was also a Christmas party. I wore my footie pajamas, but I'm pretty sure there aren't any photos of me! (For one, I have the camera during most of the class! There were photos taken of me while I was Santa Claus, but then I'm in a Santa Claus costume, obviously...)

Okay...so here's one of those, taken from Catherine's page. As the page is public, I'm assuming it's okay for me to post this? You can see my pajama feet. :-) (I got those pajamas for Christmas when I was 17, I think, and those are the only ones I own, and I have NEVER worn them to bed, as I really can't stand anything on my legs when I sleep, except bedding. But they're awesome for pajama parties!)

Unfortunately, the evening class for adults was cancelled, as too many people were unable to make it. I really hope we'll be able to continue in January, as I've very much enjoyed the half dozen or so classes we've had in the last several months.

December 18th: Piano lessons for Helen and Elisabeth as usual in the morning, then we stopped by the home of a refugee lady and her month-old baby to give them a gift from Oasis, as she wasn't able to be there the day before. I have lots of photos of Helen and Elisabeth holding the baby. :-)

No English student in the afternoon, as she had left for Slovakia for Christmas, and no dance class for the girls, so I imagine we played games and I probably got a decent amount of schoolwork done with the girls. Elisabeth also declared that she wanted her hair cut, so I went with her to our neighbor at number 3 (we're number 7 of seven houses in this court), who has a hair-cutting salon. She doesn't speak any English, which was why I took Elisabeth with me, to be able to explain better. I just wanted to make an appointment, but she said she had time right then, and when I asked how much it would cost, she refused the idea of any payment. Elisabeth's hair needed to be washed, however, and she couldn't reach the sink, so we went home again and Elisabeth showered. I then took a photo before her hair was cut, but forgot to take one afterwards. It doesn't look much different, it's just that much shorter that Elisabeth can now reach to comb it herself better. Here's the before photo, though:

Oh, and our electric kettle stopped working, and when I unplugged it I discovered this:

I threw the adapter away, but we got a new plug and changed it, but the kettle still wouldn't work. So we had to boil water on the stove for about a week, but now have a new kettle.



December 19th: We cancelled swimming in the morning because of the rain--I took this photo of our garden to send to the friend who said it wasn't raining at her house:

I had my Wednesday afternoon English student as usual, and I took this photo at dinner:

Well, after dinner, to be more precise. The cake Lukas made was delicious.

December 20th: We finally had clear weather, with several consecutive dry days forecast, so Jacob worked on the house. (I think it was about the 18th of December that the news said that there had been 123% of the usual December rainfall so far...there's been a lot of rain, which Cyprus very much needs, but is not conducive to construction!) Here he's filling in a gap between our house and the neighbor's:

All the water from the side of the roof on our room (which is at least 80% of the roof) was running straight down into the space between the wall on the neighbor's roof (that's where Jacob is standing) and the wall of our room, which starts on the top of the wall on our roof, which is about 20 centimeters lower than theirs. The two houses have separated over the years, so there was a gap of maybe 1-2 centimeters between them at the top, which is no big deal with just rain. However, with the addition of the room and the collection of all of the roof rainwater, a huge amount of water was essentially being funneled into that gap. And from there down between the houses and into our kitchen, which is why one wall of our kitchen looks like this:

Hopefully, that problem has now been taken care of, but we won't know until this has dried out enough to re-paint AND it rains heavily again...

In the afternoon Elisabeth had a Christmas party at Midi-club. Parents were invited, but I really, really wanted to be working on the roof in the sunshine, so Joern went for the first part of the party and I went at the very end. Then we had guests for dinner--lots of photos, all of which include one or more adorable children, as well as some of my children. The next day it did occur to me to take a photo of the plate of goodies they'd given us, but unfortunately, not until we'd eaten most of them...

December 21st: Elisabeth wanted a photo of her playing the piano, so here it is. (With no evidence of the fact that she CAN now comb her own hair...)

Jacob got a great deal of the plastering done, and I took this photo from the parking lot behind our house (not our parking lot):

The dark part (looked nearly black before it dried, now it's much lighter grey) is our room, and that little balcony on the top right is off of our bedroom. (And a whole bunch of water was pouring into Lukas's room, which is just under ours, but I don't have any photos. It's in the process of being dealt with.) The big balcony underneath that is Lukas's, and his room and his balcony are over the kitchen. The green mesh is on the wall around our garden (yard in American). The building to the left is a separate house.






And yes, Jacob is in a safety harness in the photo, suspended from ropes over the roof and tied to the frame holding the water tank.

In the evening, Sue and Richard came for dinner, as they do every Friday, along with their son Tim, who was here from the UK for just a week.

December 22nd: In the morning, Helen went to Tim's house for a sort of "master class" in music (he was her first piano teacher, an extremely accomplished pianist and all-round musician), which she absolutely loved. I basically did understand the theory the two of them were telling me about, with accompanying chords and such, but I still can't do what Helen was doing, which was singing a melody and accompanying it with broken chords. It sounds awesome. (Our piano does rather desperately need tuning, though...)

While Helen was out, Joern and Katie went shopping, and Lukas was still in bed. Elisabeth used to complain mightily when she was the only child around, but she was quite cheerful about it, and while I worked on the roof, she entertained herself in the garden. I took a photo of her, but you can't really see her, so took a blurry close-up, as well:

At some point, I went to run some errands, after having Jacob jump start my car, then having to have it jump started again, then going to the mechanic, which was closed, but one guy was working on his own car and looked at mine and said the battery and the alternator were both fine. He turned the engine off and it started again with no problem. It started again all the other times I used it in the last several days, but not this morning. Not cool.

Anyway, when I got home, I found out that Elisabeth and Sophia had been on the phone quite a bit. (This is why, when Joern suggested that maybe we don't need a land-line anymore, I said yes, absolutely we do, as long as we have children too young for cell phones. And Sophia's mother is of the same opinion, especially when Sophia and Elisabeth are talking to each other on their respective mother's cell phones...) They've been trying to talk us into a sleepover for ages, and I'd said not until the girls' room was cleaned up. So Sophia phoned ME and asked if she could come over to help clean up the girls' room! I caved and said yes. However, they didn't finish it, and Saturday is not a good time for a sleepover anyway.

We did keep her until after 9:00 p.m., though, as we went to the carol service at the Greek Evangelical Church. (Where, incidentally, some songs were sung in Greek and some in English, but the lyrics were up on the screen in both, and were often not even an attempt at a translation, but simply an entirely different song! Also, I interpreted the sermon for Katie, but before anyone gets too excited about my Greek, there are three points to make: the speaker is a non-native speaker of Greek (but very, very good), which means that he speaks Athenian Greek and is very clear; the sermon was quite short; and the topic was Light and the phrase "Jesus in the light of the world" was repeated in various ways many, many times, so it really wasn't too challenging.)

December 23rd: This was the fourth Sunday in Advent, but the morning was rather hectic and I didn't get a photo of the Advent wreath until later. We were allowed to take photos at church (usually, we weren't), but still can't post any faces on-line of anyone except our own children, and I don't have any of mine without other people. I did love this photo I took of one of the other teachers and two angels, which I think is okay to post:

Our friend Ingeborg and her friend Pamela (whom we've met several times at Ingeborg's house) came for lunch, as did Sophia, who spends many Sunday afternoons with us, and from whose mother I have permission to post her photo:

And we set up and decorated the tree:

Later in the afternoon we went to a "Christmas drop-in", where we saw lots of people and had a wonderful time, but of course, lots of photos with lots of other people! Here's one of Joern and Katie, though:

December 24th: I went swimming in the morning, and when I got home, the door to the girls' room was open, and this was what I saw:

It's taken a long time, but I love seeing Helen enjoying reading now.

Helen still had a couple of Christmas presents to get, so while we were out, I finally took her to get her promised tenth-birthday present (and yes, her birthday was in September):

If I think about it at all long, I really don't have a very positive opinion about bodily mutilation for the sake of fashion, but I'm just generally not at all legalistic, so now Helen has joined her two older sisters and her mother in having intentional, permanent wounds through her ears.

And I liked this photo of Katie using Connie to keep her feet warm:

In the afternoon we had more guests, a family who moved to Cyprus just a month ago and have two ten-year-olds. We had a very nice time, and I took a few photos, but once again...other children are in every photo!

The plan to finish Advent with finishing our "Advent of Gratitude" donation jar didn't go so well, as when I went up to my room after dinner to get it, I discovered that most of the money had been stolen from it. So I got my car keys instead and took a book and sat at the Salt Lake Park for three hours. Which is not festive and not something I should write, but it is what happened. I didn't take any photos. I did finish my second Agatha Christie (Murder at the Vicarage), which I enjoyed very much, but I think I liked Murder on the Orient Express better, which I read last week.

Christmas Day is a whole 'nother story that I probably won't blog. Short version is that I've never cried so much on Christmas day in my life, Jesus was not, that I recall, mentioned a single time (I imagine he was mentioned in grace before lunch, but I wasn't at lunch), but I did get the whole roof over our stairs and landing painted, so that's good. It's been raining off and on for the last two days, with no leaks, so that may have worked, but then again, it hasn't leaked in Katie's room in that time either, and I haven't done the part over her room yet, so it might not have leaked only because there hasn't been such heavy continual rain as there was before.

Advent 2018, part two

So, I had a part one, which covered six days, and here's part two for the next 10 days. Again, we don't have any specific Advent plans this year, no calendar or anything like that, just the Advent wreath.

December 7: So December 6th was Nikolaus Day, which we didn't really do anything about, but that evening, Elisabeth told us all to put our shoes in front of our bedroom doors. Which we did. Both Joern and I were rather unimpressed with the notes that told us, so we thought, that we weren't getting anything.

No, not a lot in it--nothing at all. Apparently. I didn't see Joern's note itself until the next morning, though, and I don't remember now exactly what it said, but it wasn't the same as mine and seemed to hint more strongly that one had to look rather harder. So I tipped out my shoes completely, and in one I found a candy, and in the other a candy and a little hand-made bag of gummy candies:

The only other photo I took that day was of Makenzy getting cosy. She doesn't like the cold. Not that it's been very cold yet--it's 19 degrees Celsius in my bedroom right now, at 9:30 p.m., which is quite comfortable to me.

December 8th: I babysat the little girl I used to have several afternoons a week (now she goes to preschool--which she loves, but I miss her!) and her older brother, and took lots of photos, most of which include one or both of the children. We also went to Tochni to have lunch and spend the afternoon with a German friend of ours, Ingeborg. We went in two cars (taking six children--four of our own and my two borrowed ones), and with one thing and another, Joern and I hadn't really seen each other until we got there. At which point some child noticed that we had unintentionally "twinned"--matching sweatshirts (except mine has a LOT more holes, because I wear mine a lot more often...) from our DTS in 2006, black jeans, and sandals, although our socks aren't the same color.

December 9th: Second Sunday in Advent, burning one of the new candles and continuing to work on the old ones:

In the morning I taught Sunday school, and Joern sold tickets for the morning performance of Catherine's "Alice," which Helen and Elisabeth went to see, and in the afternoon  I sold tickets for the afternoon performance and Katie took tickets at the door. I only got to go in halfway through, but I have seen it at least three or four times already. Even only getting to see half of it, I still loved it.

 At the end, Catherine has all of the children come up on the stage with her. Public setting, so I think it's alright to post this photo!

December 10th: Once a month on a Monday morning, I go to writers' group, which I thoroughly enjoy. Twice a year we have a shared meal, so instead of getting home at 1:00 or so, I was home around 3:30, I think. That counts as Adventy, as that was our Christmas meal. Then I had the 3-5-year-old drama class in the afternoon as always. :-)

December 11th: Usual Tuesday of piano lessons and then going to Sue's house, and this last Tuesday was what has become pretty much a tradition, in that my daughters put together and decorated Sue's Christmas tree (of which I took no photos...oops!), as well as some picture frames...

 ...and each other.

Definitely Christmas prep.

In the afternoon, Helen helped in the small children's dance class as always, and then I went to watch part of Helen and Elisabeth's dance class, as it was the last one before Christmas and was open to watch. Elisabeth is on the left, all in pink, and Helen is the next one in the photo, with the BRIGHT pink top:

I had to leave early to get home for my Tuesday English student, also for the last time this year, as she's off to Slovakia for Christmas. (Her mother is Slovakian, her father is Cypriot.)

December 12th: My Wednesday English student was in Slovakia (both of her parents are Slovakian), so it was a quieter afternoon than usual. Joern is usually at the staff meeting Wednesday from 3:00 to 5:00, the same time as Elisabeth's drama class, but once a month there's a gathering with the families, and this month it was a "Mexican meal" from 5:00 to 7:00. As we were getting ready to eat, I was startled to be asked to pray in Spanish, but I did so, wondering why, as nobody else there speaks much (or any) Spanish, as far as I know. But oh well, God does, so that's fine. Awhile later I suddenly went, "Duh...the theme was "Mexican meal..." I can be rather slow on the uptake at times. In my defense, the food was fine, but none of it resembled in any way anything I ate in my year in Mexico!

I did take a few photos, but most of them had other people in them, so here's the one of Joern and Helen:

Not that Helen was originally supposed to be there...she was going to be singing in another Christmas concert (same choir as the week before), but had a cold and was sniffing non-stop. She wasn't at all happy about not being able to sing, but she did cheer up.

December 13th: Nothing Christmasy at all, that I can remember. We did light the Advent candles as usual, but I don't know which day which candle stub was replaced. It would have been the 89th birthday of my father-in-law, who died 13 years ago, the girls had their usual activities, and we played a game with our friends in the evening.

And a lazy cat decided to pee in the living room, and I discovered that our living room marble tiles are NOT grey, but white.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time scrubbing maybe 1/20 of the living room floor with a mixture of baking soda, washing up liquid, and warm water, which works very well...but we not only have a lot of floor, most of it is now covered with furniture and boxes.

December 14th: No photos of any interest. I went to the hardware store and bought painty-stuff to fix the leak on the roof, but Saturday afternoon (the next day, because it was dark by the time I was home with the painty stuff) when I went up to put it on, I discovered that one of the water pumps is leaking. So I put a bucket under that so the roof could dry out, then this afternoon I went to check it out and discovered another leak, so have a bucket under that. And now it's raining again. The plumber is coming tomorrow because the water heater isn't working, so obviously I'll ask him to do something about the leaks. (I did try, of course, but unsuccessfully, to tighten the pipes.) I can't paint the painty stuff (which must have another name, but I don't know what it is) on until it's dry, and until I can be fairly sure that it won't rain for at least 4-6 hours, so at the moment, we'll just keep the bucket under the light fixture on the landing outside our bedroom, and Katie will keep a bucket in her bedroom...

December 15th: Helen has been sailing with Richard in his boat, Liza, several times, and twice I was there too, and the last time, Lukas had also gone. Katie and Elisabeth had been asking to go, and yesterday they finally got a chance. It was a lot more fun for me this time, because when Lukas and Helen were there, they were very interested in (and capable of) helping out, with untying and bringing in the fenders and fending off and helming, etc. Katie, on the other hand, is quite content to just be a passenger, and Elisabeth is not only only eight years old, she was feeling quite seasick, so I got to be much more involved in actually sailing, helming most of the way. And there was also wind this time, which obviously improves the actual sailing! (Last time, there was virtually no wind at all. We did paddle some, and laughed a lot, and I enjoyed it very much, but it wasn't exactly sailing!)

I didn't take any photos while we were out, so this is after we were back in the marina:

We got home to Lukas and Elisabeth busily making won tons, which, together with rice and vegetables, we had for lunch. They were scrumptious. (And the Advent wreath finally has four nice candles! I think the final stub was finished on Friday.)

After lunch the girls and I headed to LCC for a Christmas party for refugee children. It was loud and chaotic and fun, and somewhat amusing that I spent most of the time speaking Greek, being assigned to a craft table as "the Greek speaker" for that table.

 December 16th: Today, and the third Sunday in Advent!

Our eating area is much smaller than in our other house, which is convenient, as we're generally many fewer people than we were most of the time there, but I still can't get used to it. Lukas was still in bed for lunch, so it was just five of us.

I call this Weasley's "cat pose." Yes, I know that's silly, as he IS a cat, but he just does it so well. His tail is so nice and long and it curves all the way around his paws, as he sits on the piano looking regal. (And on a book of Christmas carols...)

Just to be fair, I took a photo of Connie, too. She wasn't very impressed.

We spent the afternoon at Sue and Richard's house, as we do every other Sunday afternoon, and now the house is nice and quiet, with the two youngest in bed, and the other two doing something that isn't internet, because thanks to Richard, they only have access on their devices until 10:00 p.m., and it is now 10:18.

Advent 2018, part one

Not "week one," because it's only been six days, and because I don't know if I'll try this once a week or not anyway. I probably shouldn't even call it "part one" until I know for sure that there's more, but anyway, here goes, for Advent 2018 so far...

December 1st: It was the staff-plus-family Christmas party for the organization my husband works with, so that checked off "doing something Christmasy." I do have photos, but they all include other people.

And before I went to bed, I remembered that the next day was the first Sunday in Advent, so I got the Advent wreath out of Lukas's closet. (All of the children have large built-in floor-to-ceiling closets, so the top parts are for our use. Katie's top ones are filled with Marie's things, the top ones in Helen's and Elisabeth's room have car seats and clothes-to-grow-into, and Lukas's have clothes, bedding, Christmas stuff, and suitcases--he has the most closet space.)

December 2nd: Before very many people had had breakfast (we do NOT have breakfast together, this decision having saved at least our marriage, if perhaps too late for my sanity), I remembered to set up the Advent wreath. We have plenty of candles, but not many of them overly useful for the wreath...

And this candle didn't do well with spending summer in Cyprus in a box...

However, there being little other choice, I made the melted candle into three candles and found another stub. Certain (male) members of my family were not impressed, but I'm rather dedicated to "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."

Melted vertically into place, and the first candle lit!

And after the girls were in bed, Jörn and I went for a walk, the first walk we've taken since we moved in. Usually, we manage at least a walk or two a week, but with Rock and moving and all the rest of everything, it hadn't happened.

December 3rd: A typical Monday: I went swimming with friends, did a little bit of schoolwork with the girls, went to Oasis (community center for refugees) supposedly for an hour to meet with pregnant women and young mothers and stayed for an hour and a half, fell down on my walk home and made one elbow and both knees bleed without putting any holes in my clothes, helped in the drama class for 3-5-year-olds, and got to participate in the adult drama class in the evening. I don't think we managed anything Adventy or Christmasy...

December 4th: A typical Tuesday: I went for a walk with my friend Sue, took Helen and Elisabeth to their piano lesson, we spent the rest of the morning with Sue, Helen and Elisabeth had dance class (Helen helps in the first class, for small children, and then she and Elisabeth are both participants in the second one), my Tuesday English student (an eight-year-old girl) came and we made cookies (oops--no photos, but if I'd taken photos, they'd probably have included her, because I forget to think about taking photos for my blog, so I couldn't have posted them anyway...), and in the evening my husband and I played a game with friends. No photos. Oh, except for of Helen rescuing the mammoth from the water tank, but that's another story, which all of my FB friends know anyway.

December 5th: Usually I'm home Wednesday mornings, but there was some concern about one of the pregnant women. It took a little while to get sorted out what her name is and where she lives, and then I went to see her, because I wasn't understanding enough on the phone. She was fine, though, not in labor after all, and now I know where she lives, which is useful, since I may be the one taking her to the hospital when it's time to go. Communication is difficult, as I don't speak either of her native languages and her English is limited, but it was good. (And quite amusing that it took a few minutes to convince her and her flat mates that I do NOT speak French, since I apparently pronounce her name very well!!)

Anyway, I was eventually home, and Jörn had gotten some greenery for the wreath. He'd also bought four red candles, but, well, see above on my "Use it up..." etc.

In the afternoon my Wednesday English student came (a nine-year-old girl), and we drew a lot of pictures of Christmas-themed things and labeled them (I was going to make cookies with her, too, but not being home in the morning, I hadn't made dough). And then we got out the Advent boxes, so she got to learn lots of really useful words like "stocking" and "camel" and so on. I used to always make sure everyone was home to do ANY decorating, but I gave up on that years ago, so it was just Katie and Helen and my student and I. (I have no idea where Lukas was, Jörn was at a staff meeting, and Elisabeth was at drama class.)

So here are the bookcases with our current (not necessarily permanent) solution:

Close-up of the stockings, which were hung in random order, and then today Katie noticed that the girls are together and the boys are together and they're symmetrical in their basic color: green, blue, red, green, red, blue, green.

I haven't asked Jacob yet if he wants his stocking at his place or here, or if/when he's coming for Christmas Eve/Christmas morning etc. It was one thing having Marie in a different country for Christmas (2015 and 2016 she stayed in the U.S., last year she came to Cyprus for Christmas), but confusing having Jacob living a five-minute walk away!

Katie arranged all the various nativity scenes:

The wise men and the camels are on the opposite side of the room. I reached up to put them there, and held the phone over my head to take the photo...only now am I seeing how dusty it is...

The plan, as every year, is to move the wise men and camels a little closer each day, and for them to arrive at the main Nativity scene on January 6th, Epiphany. The reality is that we might remember to move them once or twice between now and then, and we might not, so on January 6th they will take a flying jump to get to where they belong.

Anyway, as soon as my English student was picked up, Helen and I left for her to get to rehearsal for the choir concert that night, where I was also helping out with raffle tickets and stuff. If I could figure out how to put the video of her solo in here, I would, but I haven't figured that out yet, so oh well.

December 6th: This morning I took the lady I visited yesterday to her regular check-up. I don't think I will ever understand the system. She had an appointment for 11:20, but we were there over an hour earlier. First she had to wait in line to register downstairs and get part of her file, then she had to wait in line upstairs to sign in and get her file, then she waited for awhile and finally was weighed and had her blood pressure measured, and then she got a number. Apparently, the time of the appointment wasn't relevant, just in which order she arrived. She ended up being the very last one to see the doctor, and we weren't done until nearly 1:00.

On the way home I stopped quickly and bought chocolate Nikoläuse, as it's Nikolaus day. We'd talked about making plates of goodies for the neighbors, but...yesterday was sort of busy. Anyway, I can't count: it was a package of five, so I thought I'd have to get two packages, but then I calculated that without Marie or Jacob, five would be plenty, and if Jacob showed up for lunch, I just wouldn't have one. But six of us live here. Jacob didn't come for lunch, but I still didn't get one.

Then at lunch the first of the white candle stubs burned down completely, so got replaced with a nice new red candle. There was further discussion about whether this looked stupid, but as we do generally remember to light the candles at least one or two meals (usually all three) every single day, we're very likely to go through all four of the red candles also and need to replace them before Christmas. So, once again, my "Use it up..." took precedence over aesthetics:

When I unpacked the Advent boxes yesterday, I also found some Advent activities that I'd either found or been given rather late last year (some arrived in a Christmas package in January, for example), but thought to pack in the box for this year. Six days in, we did decide to start this, or our version of it:

The idea is to make a small donation every day of the first 24 days of December that reflect the fact that something that seems totally normal to us is something not at all taken for granted by much of the world, and that if we stop to think about it at all, we are likely to be extremely grateful. Catching up on the first six days at once got rather chaotic, but we have a jar and will see if we keep it up. Definitely got some good discussion out of it, anyway. And that may become another blogpost, but for now, here's our first quarter of Advent.

Keepin' it real

I hear that fewer and fewer people read blogs, but I still do. One that I read regularly is about ex-pats, written by ex-pats, all over the world. Single and married, with and without children, homeschooling or public schooling or private schooling, Christians, non-Christians, temporarily where they are, permanently where they are, speaking the local language or not, multi-language families or not, etc. A large majority are originally from the U.S., some are not. In October they ran a feature called "This Global Home," with a post each day from a different country, introducing the houses. I haven't actually finished reading them yet, although nearly--I've read 22 of them, I think.

One of the early ones had a phrase which then recurred several times over the month: "Keepin' it real." The photo with that statement was of a bedroom with a toddler in it. The toddler was sitting on the floor, and there were several things on the floor. A teddy bear, a book, a pair of shoes. Or something like that. Definitely not more than three or four items, anyway. The author said something like, "Keepin' it real, folks--impossible to keep everything cleared up with children in the house."

Personally, I would have considered that bedroom sparkling clean and completely tidy. Never in my life has any room of any house I have ever lived in looked anywhere that close to an Ikea display room.

I've been wanting to blog for MONTHS about our move. I've wanted everything to be finished, so I could write a nice concise (yeah, right) post about the process of our room being built, moving in, and finally living here. Photos of boxes everywhere, then photos of no boxes. Photos of the roof with spray paint marking where walls would go, then photos of the frame going up, then the finished room.

The four younger children and Joern and I were in the mountains for a few days when Jacob actually got started, August 27th. This is our room when we got back September 1st. Keepin' it real, folks, keepin' it real:

The place where a door was supposed to go turned out to have rebar in it...

...so here is our doorway, which also made the room several square meters larger.

A week later, with the rubble finally removed:

...and our room, looking rather more cleaned up:

The materials that would eventually become our room:

The whole getting-the-house process was ridiculously long, for reasons having nothing to do with us (well, unless one counts the fact that our insistence on honesty did slow things down a bit...): we put in the first offer in April, which was turned down, then after meeting with another bank, put in an offer on May 9th, which was accepted. August 10th the deposit was paid and the first contract signed, and we got keys the next week. (The owner still had keys, and was coming and going, watering the garden ("yard" in American English), feeding a cat, and phoning us every time she thought we hadn't closed enough shutters or turned the key enough times.) August 27th, Jacob started work on the roof, building a fourth bedroom. And September 6th we finally paid the balance (well, the bank did) and got all the keys. (And stopped closing all the shutters every time we left the house for ten minutes.) Four months.

We "moved in" (in that we slept here for the first time) September 26th, but our bedroom was nowhere near finished. Lukas, however, was in England from September 8th until October 30th, so we were able to stay in his room.

We moved into our room October 30th, while Lukas was literally in the air on his way back from England.

And I'm pretty sure he'd already actually landed by the time I had his bed put together in his room:

Those boxes, by the way, are all ours. Everything of Lukas's, with the exception of one large painting, fit into one of the closets in his room. (Oh, except for the stuff he has stored at Jacob's workshop/warehouse...)

And I take no responsibility for the color--Lukas painted that before he left for England.

Anyway, here is our door now, three months later:

 

I have plans for that landing, for a desk and my very own space for the first time in 24 years, but the wall isn't finished and Jacob still has a ton of stuff there.

And here's what the outside looks like:

It was supposed to take three, maybe four weeks. It's been three months. And rather obviously, is not finished. Keepin' it real, folks. Keepin' it real.

A friend has told me several times that she admires my patience. I had to tell her a story about Elisabeth, three years ago. We were in the U.S. and five-and-a-half-year-old Elisabeth tried to talk to my sister, Erin, while Erin was talking to me. Erin asked her to wait for a moment, and after she (Erin) had finished, she turned to Elisabeth and said, "Thank you for being so patient. What would you like to say?"

Elisabeth said very firmly, "I was NOT patient. I was just QUIET."

I never had much in the way of patience, and I'm running out of quiet.

Blogposts written in my head

In no particular order, here are some blogposts I've meant to write and haven't. (I should add "yet," but...some of them are definitely not going to get written anyway, probably none of them...)

Throughout 2017 I kept a list of all the books I read. (After about February or March I limited it to just the books I was reading for the first time.) I still have my list of books read in December 2017, so I could still do a blogpost on that. A lot of people keep ongoing lists of what they've read, but I never had. I did so for a year, got no joy out of it, and was absolutely thrilled when I finished my first book of 2018 and thought "I don't have to go write this down anywhere!!" All cool for those who love to do it, but I don't love to do it. Every single book I've finished this year has reminded me that I'm very happy to not feel like I have to write it down!

So-called "bullet journaling" got so popular that I had no interest in it whatsoever. But as I kept seeing post after post about it, I started to get more and more intrigued, and it's sort of what I do. Nothing decorative, and almost no "journaling," but lots of ideas taken from the concept that have worked excellently for me for almost two years now. But...that could be written at any time, so no hurry.

In May I wrote a post called "Why my children are not taking swimming lessons this month," about all of our everyday things and why there simply wasn't time to add swimming lessons to the schedule. June was supposed to be way less busy, but it wasn't, so I was going to write an ironic post called "Why my children have time to take swimming lessons this month," with the just-as-crazy-as-May-but-different schedule. But I didn't, and sure won't now.

Oh yeah, and I was also going to finish writing about our trip last year, six countries in nine weeks. I don't think that will happen, either.

Then there's the fact that we looked at 25--TWENTY-FIVE!!!--properties between January (or Februrary--I can't remember, but I have it written down, but I don't feel like going and looking for that notebook at this moment...) and May this year. When we made the appointment to look at the final one, we both said that this was the last one we were looking at. We were pretty resigned to not buying a house after all, were considering other options, fine. I paid very little attention to that last house, and when the owner wouldn't come down enough in price, I wasn't surprised. And then...things happened, and that house is now ours. I thought a blogpost on some of those properties that estate agents dared show us could be interesting, or one about the issues with this house, or even one with photos of the new house...

Oh, and then there's the fact that I've been using a smartphone since April (given to me last November, but it took me that long to get up the courage to try it out...), but I'm not finding it straightforward to get photos from there to the computer, so although I have plenty of photos (way, way, WAY too many photos...), I haven't posted any on FB since June. Our camera works sporadically, but it doesn't seem worth it to replace it, with smartphones taking better quality photos now than any camera we could possibly afford.

Speaking of June, I got to go to Oxford for a weekend for a "reunion" at which I had no business being, as the people I HAD met before I had only met once, 15 years earlier...but they'd invited me, and my husband who loves to give good gifts had booked my flight before I'd absolutely confirmed that I'd understood which dates it would be!! It was an amazingly awesome time. And it was the first trip I've done all by myself since I started dating Jörn. (Which will be 25 years ago next week. So my last "all by myself" trip was to Costa Rica, just over 25 years ago, July/August 1993.)

Another topic is helicopter parenting, lawnmower parenting, and who has accused me of what. And what makes me laugh and what doesn't.

Also, how I "take criticism" in general. I had an interesting experience a few months ago, receiving two batches of fairly strong negative criticism (in that two different people told me very loudly and clearly what I had done wrong, on two different topics) on the same day. One of them, I immediately recognized what I had done wrong, apologized, and corrected it. It in no way affected our relationship, and I bore no grudges of any kind. I was wrong, and was glad to be corrected! The other, I disagreed (and still disagree), but I could have just listened and gotten over it, but what really wound me up was all the "fluff" around it, "don't want to hurt you," "hear my heart," and so on. She's welcome to her opinion. She needs to allow me to have mine. I will not do what she asked me to not do, and I will not grudge her that. But when it has nothing to do with her, I'm not going to go along with her opinion, either! (If Person B is happy with me picking her flowers, I don't need to let the fact that Person A doesn't want me to pick Person A's flowers stop me from picking Person B's flowers! And no, it had nothing to do with flowers.) Still, it wasn't even the difference of opinion that bothered me so much, but the fact that she wouldn't acknowledge that it WAS an opinion. And even more than that was the beating around the bush and claiming a bunch of other things that were irrelevant to the topic at hand. If you don't want me to pick your flowers, that's fine. I won't pick your flowers. But whether I like your dog or not is not the same topic and not relevant. Now I'm really rambling on it (practically doing the blogpost already, I guess...), so I'll stop there. Maybe I'll expand another time.

Then, as every year, there are the dates of the births of the babies we had who were born dead. (Common phrasing is "miscarried," simply because they were born before they could possibly have been revived. I don't even actually know if they were already dead at birth, since the problem was never with the babies themselves, but with the ability of my body to carry them.) I don't often think of their original due dates (I never think of the original due dates of any of my living children, either), but today was the due date for our fourth child, who was born 14 and a half years ago.

I could always throw in a post or two about home education (or homeschooling or unschooling or free range learning, or change the topic altogether and just discuss semantics...) and what my children are up to.

And I keep wanting to write about our friend Bobby, who died several weeks ago. How can there be a world without Bobby? But I can't.

And there's always the fallback of just describing a day or week in our lives. Which isn't too crazy yet, because most activities won't get started until the third week of September, or even October. (Even less crazy over the next few days, because there are only three of us at home!! Except that since the only two children home are the two youngest, I might need to arrange babysitting a couple of times, which is something I haven't had to do for awhile, with a range of resident teens to choose from...)

Any other ideas? I have lots. But in the meantime, I'm getting accolades for "all I'm doing," when the reality is that I'm not doing terribly well any of the things I'm supposed to be doing. (That could be another blogpost, a list of all the activities I've somehow found myself a part of, and WANT to be a part of, and COULD do well, but...maybe there are too many...)

This and that, buying a house, children scattered, etc....

So...I just read my last blogpost, and was interested to see that we'd just met with someone about a house, but she couldn't come down in price and we couldn't go up. That was, by the way, house number 25 that we had looked at, having started in January or February. We weren't really all that serious about buying when we started looking, more just extremely frustrated with the situation with the house where we've been living for 9 1/2 years. Then when we found out that we couldn't get a mortgage past Jörn's 65th birthday, we got a little more serious, because that put a lower cap on our maximum than we'd expected, and also meant that we would have to buy NOW or not until we have no children at home, because all we'd be able to get would be a one-bedroom flat...

Well, newsflash: we have now bought that house.

The then-owner of that house suggested contacting a different bank to see if we could get a bigger mortgage. We didn't see much point in it, as Hellenic Bank told us the age-65 limit was Cyprus law, but Jörn phoned Bank of Cyprus. They told him that Cyprus law is age 70, but usually they only give loans until age 65. There are some exceptions, but he "wouldn't qualify." They refused to tell him over the phone what the exceptions might be, so he made an appointment to meet with them in person. Eventually, they said that the reason is that retirement is at age 65. Jörn pointed out that he has a German contract and won't/can't retire before he's 67. That gives us two more years, juuuust enough to put in an offer on that house. Which was accepted. (And then the bank randomly offered to extend the mortgage for an extra year, "just because," which is fine with us. I could do a daily series for a year on the rest of the chaos, but I'll leave it at that for now.)

So...with all of our savings (the entire amount we got out of selling our flat in Germany ), a loan against one of Jörn's life insurance policies in Germany (Germans love insurance, but as we cash in one after another for things like going to the U.S. and buying a house, I'm getting the impression that "life insurance" is just German for "savings account"...), and a mortgage from the Bank of Cyprus, we bought a house last Thursday. Because yes, four months is how long it took for the bank, the seller, the lawyers, the municipality, and the land registry to all get their acts together all at the same time. And with an additional amount of credit that Jörn was able to get from the bank in Germany because he's still an employee there (on unpaid parental leave since January 2009, but still with a contract...), Jacob is building a fourth bedroom on the roof.

Lukas sort of painted one wall of his room and the majority of his stuff is now piled there. (He also took a bunch of stuff to be stored at Jacob's warehouse this morning.) He's now on his way to England to do a work experience in landscaping and gardening, for at least three or four weeks, maybe up to six weeks. (In fact, looking at the time, he should be at the airport in Paphos by now. I was going to drive him, but I have an infected tooth or something that is making my jaw hurt, meaning I didn't get much sleep and am probably not safe to drive, so when our friend Mick offered to drive Lukas, I was happy to accept. I hope to have a text within the next half hour or so saying that he's gotten through passport control okay. He's traveling on his U.S. passport, but that's another story.) (*Update* Lukas phoned to say that he got through passport control with no problems!)

Katie painted most of her room and I might finish it for her tomorrow afternoon. She and Jörn left for Germany at 5:00 this morning. Katie will be seeing an orthodontist in Germany for a second opinion, because the one here wants to do waaaaay more than we think necessary. However, no longer having German health insurance (as of two years ago when German residence laws changed), she won't be able to have treatment there anyway, we're just hoping that that orthodontist (who handled Lukas several years ago) will agree with us that "wait and see" is a viable option. Next Wednesday, Katie will fly home (her first flight by herself!), and Jörn will fly to England for another art conference.

Helen and Elisabeth and I painted Helen and Elisabeth's room a couple of weeks ago already. (After we'd paid the down payment, the owner gave us keys to the house so we could get started.) They were excellent painters. They've taken a couple of boxes over already, too.

Helen and Elisabeth and I have also put paint on a large portion of the living room walls, and Jörn did most of one wall, but some parts need a second coat, and some parts can't yet be done because I'm waiting for Jacob to repair some plaster.

We're not painting the kitchen at this point, because the kitchen is fairly ugly, and we kind of hope that in a year or two we can somehow redo the kitchen...

As for Jörn's and my bedroom...it doesn't exist yet. A doorway from the top of the stairs onto the roof has been knocked through the wall, but not evened out, and a bunch of stuff has been delivered, but nothing else has happened. Jacob said "three to four weeks," but started two weeks ago, so I admit that I'm getting a little nervous about whether it will be finished by the end of September...

And no bedroom for Jacob, because he plans to move out on the first of October. He's welcome to stay with us if he shares with Lukas, or puts a tent in the garden, or builds another room on the roof at his expense...

There was a break in there for dinner, during which Lukas phoned, and Helen is on the phone with my sister Erin at the moment. Elisabeth is getting ready for bed, and when she and Helen are ready, I'll read to them.

I've written a lot of imaginary blogposts in my head, maybe after the girls are in bed I'll write another one. But don't count on it...

Why my children are not taking swimming lessons this month

It is May again, and this May is very similar to the last several Mays, with regards to busy-ness, but with more variety in the past. However, no children are taking swimming lessons this May.

Monday: Okay, so the Monday of this week was actually still April, but as a typical Monday, I'll include it.

At 5:35 a.m. I wake up to an alarm, something I hadn't done regularly for the last 20 years until last June, and which totally scared me this Monday, because it my first time using my new-to-me phone given to me over five months ago. My friend Dagmar collects me and (usually, although not this particular Monday) another friend, Jeannette, and we go swimming at Makenzy Beach. The water this Monday was REALLY calm (λάδι, we have learned to say, which means oil or something to do with oil, and I have no idea if I spelled that right) and they'd put in some new buoys, so instead of just swimming to one and back, as we often do, we swam from one to another, about six in all, I think. We didn't draw any faces on buoys this time.

At 9:00, three children arrived who will be joining us Monday and Thursday mornings for the next month or two. They've lived in Cyprus on and off, but had been gone for the last year, and just got back (temporarily) last week. Neither of their parents are native speakers of English, so I'm giving a bit of support to the two seven-year-olds. (The parents speak excellent English, but they understandably prefer to speak their respective native languages with their children.) The 13-year-old is a very good friend of Katie's, and the two of them disappear into Katie's room for the duration. I do some things together with the boys and Helen and Elisabeth, and then I rotate who I work with individually in the living room while the others occupy themselves otherwise.

At 1:30, the little girl, M., I've been taking care of several hours a week for the last year and a half arrived, and Helen left with M's mother. She teaches really awesome children's dance/movement/gymnastic classes, which Helen now goes to as of a couple of months ago. (I got to watch a class several weeks ago, and was very impressed, and Helen loves it.)

I didn't take anyone to Pathfinders (a church activity group for 6-11-year-olds) this week, because our church building sustained pretty serious water damage a month or so ago and has been meeting in a hotel at Makenzy. It's not THAT far away, but it's very difficult to be at Makenzy at 4:00, return M. at 4:00, and be at Catherine's at 4:00, so I just do two out of the three at the moment. So Jörn and I BOTH drive to essentially the same place, where I park at Catherine's and take M. over to her mother at the American Academy (where the dance class happens), and Jörn picks up Helen and drives her and Elisabeth (and this week, Katie, who has been helping, but usually has to be there early, but didn't this time) to Pathfinders.

From 4:00 to 5:00 I help in Catherine's "First Steps" drama class, for 3-4-year-olds. Helen attended that class from when it was first started, I think six years ago, and then Elisabeth did, and and some point, I started helping. Elisabeth outgrew the class, but I didn't. It's one of my favorite times of the week.

At 5:30 I picked up Lukas (who also helps at Pathfinders, but had gotten a ride with the leader to be there early), Katie, Helen, and Elisabeth from Pathfinders. At that point, I also had to take M.'s car seat out, but when I opened the trunk (or boot, or as Jacob informed me, simply "the back" to avoid confusion) to put it in there, I discovered a pallet-board creation and my guitar, both left there by Jacob, who has been using my car rather a lot lately. I was not happy. The pallet-board thing had to go across the girls' laps, and the guitar had to go in the front with Lukas. I was not happy with Jacob.

Normally, Jacob, Lukas, and Katie all go to Youth Alpha (dinner and a Bible Study) Monday nights, but because we had guests coming for dinner, Lukas decided not to go. Also, Jacob stopped by the house with his friend Max, because they'd been working all day and hadn't eaten. So we'd thought we'd have eight people at dinner (only half of them Langes), but ended up having 12 (because at the last minute, Katie decided to eat something too). Jacob, Max, and Katie then headed off to Alpha, while the rest of us had a very enjoyable evening at home.

One Monday morning a month I have Writers' Group, and having two extra children in the morning is a new thing, but that was a fairly typical Monday.

Tuesday: This week's Tuesday was a holiday, but we didn't do anything different than usual, except that grocery shopping wasn't possible. (And since I don't do the grocery shopping anyway, that's not actually relevant.)

I walked in the Salt Lake Park with my friend Sue (no alarm for that--she texts when she's awake, and I'm almost always awake before that), and then we sat on her garden swing and chatted until Jörn phoned and asked if I was aware of the time. Oops. So at 8:15 I rushed home, rushed a shower, rushed breakfast, rushed children, and left late, stopping at the bank for money for piano and saxophone lessons, then realized that my darling son had left me with an empty gas tank, so stopped at the gas station as well. As we pay the saxophone teacher per month and the piano teacher per lesson, I paid for that from the saxophone money and will pay him the rest next month.

So Lukas had his saxophone lesson while Helen and Elisabeth had their piano lessons (the teachers live across the street from each other!), each of them doing their written music theory with me during the other one's lesson. They're supposed to do that at home, but often don't. When there's time, they also each do math during the other's lesson.

From there we drove to Sue's house, where we've been going Tuesday mornings for about eight years, I think. Lukas walked home from there.

I'd accidentally turned off my new-to-me phone after Katie had called me during the music lessons, so I didn't get any of Jörn's many attempts to call me and tell me we were rather late for lunch, until he called Richard instead.

Home for lunch and reading with the girls until Helen had to be at drama rehearsal at 3:00. As Katie was out, we took Elisabeth with us, and after dropping off Helen, met a lady for coffee to discuss the house she has for sale, which is more than we can afford. A very nice conversation, but, very understandably, she really can't sell the house for what we can pay.

Back home, and then Jörn picked up Helen at 5:00. Dinner (bread and stuff--I'd made bread after lunch, lunch being a cooked meal), read to the girls (Swallows and Amazons at the moment), then once they were in bed, Jörn and I went for a walk of about 7 kilometers, which we do once or twice a week.

Wednesday:

Swimming with Dagmar, schoolwork with the girls until 10:30, and then I went to Oasis, the refugee community center where I taught English last year, but haven't this year.

Between the two English classes Wednesday morning, another lady (a retired midwife) and I are trying to get a support system for pregnant women and new mothers going. Nobody has actually showed up yet, but because of it being announced, one woman who was there for English told another woman back at the refugee camp about it, and she contacted us, back in February. I was able to accompany her to a couple of check-ups, and then support her through labor and the birth of her baby. We've also visited a couple of others in the hospital, and been to Kofinou (the refugee camp) once, but as both of us have fairly limited time, we've unfortunately not been able to do as much as we'd like. Still, people are starting to know we exist, so that is good.

As I was about to leave, Katie phoned me and asked me to pick her up. She'd walked to church in the morning to help with cleaning up, but I'd said I might be able to pick her up, as it's getting rather warm. (In fact, it was 30 degrees yesterday (86 F), and very humid, so I would actually call that "hot" rather than warm...) I picked her up, and then we went downtown, where I wanted to try on some Birkenstocks. Seeing the prices, I think it's just as well that they did not have my size in the style I like.

Elisabeth's rehearsal for "Alice in the News" (to be performed May 27th) was 2:30 to 5:00, and I'm also helping in that class. There's a certain amount of telling people to be quiet and not sit on each other backstage, etc., but I really love this group of 7-9-year-olds, and I actually have things to DO backstage. Of the three plays, this is the one that I really enjoy working with.

And Wednesday night, after the girls were in bed, we went to Sue's and Richard's to play Cities and Knights (Settlers of Catan extention), as we do most Wednesday.

Thursday:

Thursday morning was walking with Sue again, and having the three extra children in the morning. Also, at the last minute I had M. for the morning (well, from late morning, and then until 4:00 p.m.), as well. She mostly sat on my lap and listened to the boys reading to me. None of my own toddlers would have done that!

Normally M. arrives at 1:30 on Thursdays, and M.'s mother takes Helen, but since I already had M., Jörn took Helen to the dance class. At 3:00 I took Katie to her drama rehearsal and picked up Helen, then we went shopping for birthday presents for Jörn, then we picked up Helen's and Elisabeth's friend Sophia, came back to the house (very close) to put the presents in the house, and then drove to the Greek Evangelical Church, where the three girls go to Midiclub, an activity group similar to Pathfinders, but as of age 3 and really only until about 8 or 9. They started it for ages 3-6, as there wasn't anything for that age group, but they've expanded it as the participants got older, and now divide into two age groups for some of the activities. That's from 4:00 to 5:30, and I used to stay and help a bit, but now I have M. until about 4:15 and Greek class at 4:30. So I drop off the girls and drive to the American Academy (which isn't far at all and I should walk...) to return M., but yesterday, M. had fallen asleep after shopping, so I parked in the shade and cleaned out the car while I waited for M.'s mother. A pair of shoes and socks belonged to Elisabeth. EVERYTHING else (drink bottles, candy wrappers, receipts, etc.) were from Jacob or Jacob's friends. I put everything in the back. Once M. had been collected, I drove back to GEC to park, as Oasis, which is where my Greek class is, is across the street.

The classes are free and are actually meant for refugees, but were made available to other people in the community if there was space. I started a week late, and the only class in which there was space was the most advanced class, which is about halfway through a book I finished eight years ago. However, since there are only two or three of us in the class, and the teacher (at my insistence!) does NOT speak English with us, it's a very good opportunity for me, and I'm hoping to finally make some more progress. We're really just using the book as a way to start conversation, and are talking much more than in any other class I've had, except for the one-on-one lessons I had last year (and would like to continue, but schedules are difficult to coordinate...). Greek finishes at 6:00, so Jörn picks up the girls (including Katie, who walks from drama) and takes Sophia home.

Last night at 8:00 I had a phone call scheduled on the topic of home education in Cyprus, which was very interesting. Jörn and I often go for a walk, but I had to wait for the phone call (which ended up being about 45 minutes long), so he went for a walk by himself.

Friday:

This morning I went swimming as usual, and it's almost 8:00 now and I haven't showered yet. In the winter, I turned on the water heater before I left to go swimming, and got in the shower the moment I got home, to thaw out, but it's 28 degrees already today, so no danger of freezing, nor have I needed to use the electric water heater for a couple of months already. The girls are required to appear by 9:00, so I have some time. Lukas left with Jacob before I even got home from swimming.

Normally, Friday morning I would be home all morning and we'd get a decent amount of schoolwork done, but today I have a meeting at 11:00, with the group planning Roger Jones' upcoming tour of Cyprus with the musical "Rock," about the life of Simon Peter.

Friday is unique in that is the one day that none of us are in any way involved in theater! However, Some of us have discussed the possibility of getting involved with the drama club at the British military base, which has a group Friday afternoons...

I have M. again from 1:30 to about 3:30 (sometimes 4:30), and Sue and Richard come for dinner. Jacob, Lukas, and Katie go to youth group, and we usually have to pick up Katie.

Saturday:

The last several Saturdays have only had one rehearsal, but this Saturday will be Helen's group (8-10-year-olds, performing "The Twits" May 20th, and Helen is one terribly awesome Mrs. Twit) in the morning and Katie's (11-13-year-olds, "Bog Boy") in the afternoon. I'll help at both rehearsals, which with Helen's group isn't much more than occasionally raising an eyebrow, and putting away props and scenery at the end. The main reason I'm there, really, is to be familiar enough with the show to be of help to Richard in the sound box for the performance. I'm happy to do it, and it's not exciting, but it's fine.

Katie's group, on the other hand, is one that should absolutely not need anyone helping. They do not need any help with props or changing, they're old enough to help with scenery, etc., and they OUGHT to be old enough to sit quietly backstage. I spend the whole 3 1/2 hours glaring at people, physically moving people away from each other, removing props from people's hands, and holding my finger to my lips. I'm supposed to be getting familiar with the show, but haven't been able to watch much of it at all, because I'm running crowd control in the back. And their play is this Sunday.

After the rehearsal, Jacob will be arriving with his truck, and we'll be loading the scenery into it in preparation for Sunday morning.

Saturday evening, I usually go over to Sue's and Richard's to play some game that is NOT Settlers of Catan. Jörn doesn't go, because he only wants to play Settlers.

Sunday:

The last several Sundays there have been two rehearsals, but this Sunday, I'll be at the theater (REAL theater, or I should spell it theatre, as in Scala Theatre in Larnaka!) from 8:00 in the morning, transporting and setting up scenery. The children will arrive at 10:00 for rehearsal, at some point there will be a lunch break, and then the play is at 5:00 p.m., so we'll probably be there from 3:00 or 3:30, I guess. It's a very nice theater, but doesn't have any real dressing rooms, so most of my time back there is spent telling the boys to stay where they were told and the girls to stay where they were told. At least, that was my experience the last two years with this age group!

And this is why nobody is taking swimming lessons this year in May.

At the end of May, Catherine is off to China for a month, to perform "Just Imagine," and is taking Jacob with her for lights and sound. So there will be no drama classes or rehearsals at ALL, after having them every day of the week except Friday for the last couple of months! Unless, of course, we do check out the Dekhelia base drama clubs...Lukas and I are both interested in lights, sound, and backstage stuff, and Helen in acting.